Claudia DeMonte with one of her sculptures at PS 139 in Brooklyn The fourth graders at PS 139 in Brooklyn were hooked from the moment the visual artist Claudia DeMonte walked in the door of their classroom this morning. The tall, dynamic woman with the long ponytail shared her life story while showing slides of her magical art. "All my art comes from my own story," she said as a bronze sculpture of a woman draped in pocket books popped on the screen. "I love pocket books but my husband says, 'why do you need another one when you have 10 already?' This work is from a show about abundance and the lack of it." The next sculpture was of a very thin woman who had nothing. "My parents were immigrants from Italy and my father was homeless when he came here. He started working when he was eight. I got to go to college because I had really good parents."
DeMonte came to school to celebrate Studio in a School's Visual Arts Appreciation Week, just as Jeff Koons did yesterday in East Harlem. Both artists wanted to bring attention to the work Studio has been doing for 35 years -- providing art to New York City schools that otherwise wouldn't have an arts program. PS 139 has partnered with Studio for the past seven years to create an ongoing visual arts program for their school.
Studio artist instructor Virginia Levie has run the program from the start and teaches over 300 children every week. Her classroom/art studio is jammed with her young artists' imaginative creations. Over 100 papier-mâché self-portraits are strung along the walls, including a Pakistani baseball player with black marks under his eyes and a Yankee cap. Super hero collages on paper, watercolor butterflies, spotted owls, rainbow-hued fish, and clay, wood and wire sculptures of gesture and balance, including a break-dancer in motion, compete for attention.
DeMonte was as smitten with the children and their art as they were with her. "I didn't have a school like this to go to when I was young, with all these wonderful supplies and this wonderful teacher," she told them. "You're being taught like you're in college -- talking about your art, sharing your ideas with your friends." When she learned that the children in the school speak over 30 languages, she told them about her extensive travels. "I've been to over 100 countries all over the world; when you travel you learn that no place is better than another, just different."
DeMonte's art reflects her travels and her particular interest in women's lives and work. One show she curated was images suggested by women artists in over 100 countries, when she had asked the artists, "What image means woman to you?" She showed them an example of one of her most well known sculpture series -- a carved teddy bear decorated with delicate, shiny cast pewter objects that she calls "milagros" -- meaning miracles. The milagros were inspired by Latin folk art and each pewter creation represents something of significance to her (from tennis balls to pocket books).
Before she finished her day at school, DeMonte helped the children work on their own art project of the day -- a collaborative collage of a baseball pitcher in motion. They were discussing how to "scale up" their images so that they could recreate them on a very large canvas that was bigger than life-size. Each child cut out a body part from painted paper and the group assembled the pieces and discussed their collaborative results. The hour flew by and the children told DeMonte they hoped she would come back and teach them more art.
DeMonte countered with "I'm the one who was lucky in getting to come here today. I'm so impressed… you guys inspire me. You're really artists. Now I want to go home and make something bigger!"
DeMonte came to school to celebrate Studio in a School's Visual Arts Appreciation Week, just as Jeff Koons did yesterday in East Harlem. Both artists wanted to bring attention to the work Studio has been doing for 35 years -- providing art to New York City schools that otherwise wouldn't have an arts program. PS 139 has partnered with Studio for the past seven years to create an ongoing visual arts program for their school.
Studio artist instructor Virginia Levie has run the program from the start and teaches over 300 children every week. Her classroom/art studio is jammed with her young artists' imaginative creations. Over 100 papier-mâché self-portraits are strung along the walls, including a Pakistani baseball player with black marks under his eyes and a Yankee cap. Super hero collages on paper, watercolor butterflies, spotted owls, rainbow-hued fish, and clay, wood and wire sculptures of gesture and balance, including a break-dancer in motion, compete for attention.
DeMonte was as smitten with the children and their art as they were with her. "I didn't have a school like this to go to when I was young, with all these wonderful supplies and this wonderful teacher," she told them. "You're being taught like you're in college -- talking about your art, sharing your ideas with your friends." When she learned that the children in the school speak over 30 languages, she told them about her extensive travels. "I've been to over 100 countries all over the world; when you travel you learn that no place is better than another, just different."
DeMonte's art reflects her travels and her particular interest in women's lives and work. One show she curated was images suggested by women artists in over 100 countries, when she had asked the artists, "What image means woman to you?" She showed them an example of one of her most well known sculpture series -- a carved teddy bear decorated with delicate, shiny cast pewter objects that she calls "milagros" -- meaning miracles. The milagros were inspired by Latin folk art and each pewter creation represents something of significance to her (from tennis balls to pocket books).
Before she finished her day at school, DeMonte helped the children work on their own art project of the day -- a collaborative collage of a baseball pitcher in motion. They were discussing how to "scale up" their images so that they could recreate them on a very large canvas that was bigger than life-size. Each child cut out a body part from painted paper and the group assembled the pieces and discussed their collaborative results. The hour flew by and the children told DeMonte they hoped she would come back and teach them more art.
DeMonte countered with "I'm the one who was lucky in getting to come here today. I'm so impressed… you guys inspire me. You're really artists. Now I want to go home and make something bigger!"
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